THE "DEMOISELLE." 67 



always worth recording. Virgil, in his first Georgic instructs 

 the husbandman to confide in those indications of the weather 

 afforded by the aspect of the sun, for the rather curious reason, 

 however, that the obscuration of the solar orb gave faithful warn- 

 ing of the impending fate of Caesar ! A very striking instance of a 

 form of sophism, well known to the logician, in which an accidental 

 circumstance is assumed as sufficient to establish efficient connection. 

 On the morning of Wednesday last we had a smart touch of frost 

 here in exposed situations a strange and anomalous phenomenon 

 in the dog-days truly ! But when we remember that Mr. Glaisher 

 (who for purely scientific purposes has put his life into greater 

 peril than any other living man), in his recent aerial ascent met 

 with a regular snow-storm at the elevation of only about one mile 

 above the earth's surface, we shall not wonder so much, perhaps, 

 that a frost current should, under certain circumstances, occasion- 

 ally penetrate earthwards even in the dog-days. We should have 

 stated above that on the 13th we carefully examined the solar disc 

 with an excellent four-feet telescope belonging to Ardgour, when it 

 presented only two " spots " or maculce, and neither of these of 

 remarkable size or form, situated close together on the orb's south- 

 western limb. 



We are are glad to observe that the " Demoiselle " or Numidian 

 crane recently shot at Deerness has been preserved, and is to fall 

 into careful keeping. Its feeding on oats, however, is very extra- 

 ordinary, and only to be accounted for by the supposition that its 

 natural food was so scarce in a locality so unlike its own sunny 

 clime, that it was fain to fill its crop with the readiest possible 

 edible that presented itself. The snowy owl, a specimen of which 

 is stated to have been recently shot in Sutherland, is by no means 

 a rare'visitor in Britain. A pair, male and female, in full plumage, 

 were shot on the links of St. Andrews, by Captain Dempster, of 

 the Indian Army, in the winter of 1847, and are now, we believe, 



